October 25, 2014

Friday Night Movies 499

Onna Kyûketsuki is our first feature. It's a 1959 Japanese vampire film that was titled The Woman Vampire for world wide release. The DVD is titled The Lady Vampire for some unknown reason. Nobuo Nakagawa is the director and he also directed Jigoku. The movie is about a family, dad is old, his daughter is in her 20's and mom has been missing for 20 years. That's mom posing for the painting. The guys are the vampire and his dwarf henchman. The family is at an art gallery and dad sees the painting of his long gone wife. The daughter is dating a reporter and while the two of them are trying to find out who the artist is mom shows up looking just like she did when she disappeared. She doesn't say anything for a while but later in the movie we find out what happened when she disappeared from the family picnic. The cape wearing vampire got her, bite her, and gave her immortality. She'd been a prisoner for 20 years and just managed to escape.

Mr Vampire does a lot of running around and chomping on the ladies. The vampire mechanics are different in this story. Moonlight seems to set him off, it turns the dashing sunglass wearing figure into a monster. He kidnaps the daughter and the reporter and the police are right after him. Don't worry, he'll save her but some of the other folks aren't so lucky. I thought the movie was a hoot. There's a bit of a mystery, some vampire action, plenty of moody parts and plenty of silliness. Vampire guy is quite entertaining when he vamps out. Well worth a look for those that like this sort of thing. It was one of the first Japanese modern day vampire films.

Our second feature was the BluRay of The Howling. I have seen it a few times but not for some time. It's a 1981 film directed by Joe Dante and written by John Sayles and Terence H Winkless who adapted the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner. It's got a great cast: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee. Dennis Dugan, Kevin McCarthy, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Elisabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo, Kenneth Tobey and Dick Miller.

Dee is a news anchor who is being stalked by a creep named Eddie. She agrees to meet him at a porn shop and the police stick a radio transmitter on her. There's some equipment failure and they have to follow her on foot. Policeman Kenneth and his trigger happy partner get a lead and trace her to the private booth in the porn shop. Trigger happy blasts Eddie leaving Dee a nervous wreck. Her husband in the movie, and in real life, Christopher Stone is upset and the police are the dicks they often are. Poor Dee is so traumatized by the experience of what she saw that she can't do the news broadcast.

Patrick, a psychotherapist, talks her into visiting his retreat, the Colony. She agrees and Christopher drives her out to the pretty ocean side location. There's a pack of weird folks there and things get crazier and crazier. The werewolves turn up and there's slaughter aplenty. Hardly anyone gets out alive. Writer John Sayles has a small part as a morgue attendant. Forrest J Ackerman, Roger Corman and James Murtaugh all have camero parts. There's a fairly good sense of humor about the film, there are lots of little sight gags and film references to spot. Rob Bottin did the werewolf makeup and it's fairly good most of the time. The film moves along pretty quickly and there's usually something going on. It was did well at the box office when it was released, it cost a million bucks and made 17 times that back. It's become a fan favorite and it's cultish status spawned 7 sequels. I have seen some of them but not all of them. Certainly The Howling is worth seeing for the monster and horror fan.